Drop wire



Sept 1951 T. E. WATSON 2,566,471

DROP WIRE Filed March 27, 1948 IN VEN TOR.

77f0 7/l6 5. WA 760:

BYQO'M- Patented Sept. 4, 1951 UNITEDSTATES PATENT OFFICE DROP WIRE Thomas E. Watson, Tewksbury, Mass.

Application March 27, 1948, Serial No. 17,410

9 Claims. (01. 139-353) The present invention relates to yarn guides, and particularly to th type thereof known as guide eyes, with special relation to guide eyes suitable for use on drop wires for warp stop motions. These drop wire; ride on the individual ends of warp in various textile machines such as warpers and looms, each drop wire being supported. thereby so long as its proper warp yarn remains unbroken, but being allowed to drop when such warp yarn breaks or slackens, the drop wire thereupon closing an electrical contact which stops the machine, thus calling the operators attention to the defect and enabling him to repair it promptly.

Since the weight of the drop wire is supported entirely by the yarn passing through it, the yarn tends to cut and wear the drop wire at the point of support of the latter by the traveling yarn, namely at the top of the eye formed on the upper end of the drop wire for the reception of the warp yarn. This cutting occurs with all kinds of yarn, but is especially pronounced in the case of silk, rayon, and other synthetic yarns. In the attempt to prevent it, the eye has been formed of materials harder than the remainder of the drop wire, such as glass and porcelain. But when this is done, the groove sawed into the eye by the yarn commonly has sharp edges which in turn out the yarn so as to impair its quality or result in its breakage. When such wear occurs, the only remedy is to replace the drop wire with a new one, with consequent recurring trouble and expense at relatively frequent intervals, particularly in the case of high speed warpers.

Additionally, a very substantial amount of time and labor is involved, and much machine time lost, in threading up or drawing in the warps through the conventional enclosed eyes of prior types of drop wires. The material of the eye of such prior types being continuous around the entire circuit of the eye, such eyes are essentially holes into which the yarn can be introduced only by threading or drawing it through endwise, this requiring the breaking and subsequent piecingup of each yarn in order to make an end which can be drawn through the eye, whenever drop wires are changed on a warp which has already been set up.

The object of the invention is to provide a novel and improved drop wire adapted for use in standard warp stop motions, which shall avoid the drawbacks of prior drop wires in the respects indicated. To these ends, the novel drop wire has its eye formed in the shape of a, pigtail in-- stead of as a completely enclosed eye, so that the warp yarn can be introduced into the eye in unbroken relation at any point in the length of the yarn by a lateral movement of the yarn, thus avoiding the delay and nuisance incident to drawing in the end of the warp yarn.

To reduce the wear of the eye by the traveling yarn, and obviate the cutting of grooves having sharp shoulders, and hence greatly lengthen the useful life of the drop wire, the pigtail l is made of boro-silicate or other synthetic jewel material of non-metallic nature having the requisit characteristics both of extreme hardness and of having a substantially equal or superior degree of hardness for a material depth below such surface, preferably throughout its entire thickness, and having at the same time the capability of being molded or otherwise shaped into the requisite pigtail form. Through the use of the material named, or of other materials which are both very hard at the surface and substantially equally hard below their surface, I not only obtain extreme resistance to surface wear of the eye, but avoid the sharp-shouldered grooving which occurs when relatively softer areas underlie a hard exterior surface, as in the case of porcelain, for example, in which case the wearing-down of the hard outer surface results in faster wear of the underlying softer portion at the location where first exposed to contact with the yarn, thus concentrating the sawing action of the yarn thereafter at that one location to form a groove bounded at its peripheral edges by the harder surface material which latter is thereafter whetted into sharp cutting shoulders that damage the yarn. Further, the preferred class of materials have the necessary strength and freedom from brittleness and tendency to shatter, to permit the eye to be made in pigtail form without a prohibitive amount of breakage in use.

To enable the improved drop wire to be made cheaply and easily, I have devised a simple and efficient means of attaching the novel eye to a drop wire of conventional sheet metal form.

Other objects of the invention, and the manner of their attainment, are as set forth herein.

An illustrative embodiment of the invention in connection with a drop wire is shown in the accompanying drawings in which Fig. 1 is a front elevation and Fig. 2 a side elevation of a drop wire having its eye formed by the improved yarn guide of the invention.

The blade of the drop wire may be of any suitable or preferred design and material, the blade I in the drawings comprising a common type formed of thin sheet metal having the usual central slot 3 for the reception of the contact bar (not shown) of the warp stop motion, on which it is mounted, and having the usual oblique cam surface 5 to tilt a fallen drop wire into good electrical contact with the contact bar.

In accordance with the invention, a member a is provided comprising a. short section of sheet metal tubing of initially circular section which has been flattened throughout a substantial portion of its length to bring opposing portions of 3 its side wall into fiat and parallel relation, and the upper end of blade I is fittedtightly between these flattened walls, corners of the top end of blade I being cutlofi obliquely. as indicated at! to matclntheeslant otfthe:transitionportion which joins the circular top part of member 9 with the parallel sided bottom portion receiving the The blade I is secured in the end of blade I. widened portion of member 9 hereby by sold'er ing, and alternatively by denting theparts transversely to the plane of blade I.

The guide eye II is formedofi a rodlofibord silicate which preferably contains boron, oxide, B203, and aluminum oxide, A1203, fused in com bination with silica, S102; and which has a hardness' rating of approximately 9 in the conventional scale of hardness of minerals. It' is thus comparable inhardness with sapphire (corund'um5, and hence such latter substance as well as other synthetic jewel materialshaving: the requisites of comparable hardness and ability to beformed into the desired shape are contemplated as equivalents. The rod ofbore-silicate is madeof circularsection, and is-bent into typical" pi'gtail shape comprising slightly more than one turn of an open helix, with one extremity [if of the rod extending upward beyond and in tangential relation to-thehelix while the other extremity I5 isbent" tc-assume substantially radie-1 relation to the helix; (likewise extending out beyond the" helix) so that the center of support of the drop wire-by the yarn (not shown) passing; through the aperture [1 of the eye will be directly over the blade I and in the plane of the latter.

The eye or pigt'ail' H is secured within the cavity provided by the circular upper portion of member" 9' by inserting the radialextremity l5 thereinto and filling the space between the interi'or" wall of" such circular portion 9 and the extremity l-5 with sealing wax l9= or other suitable cementing medium while holding the extremity' [5- centered on the axis of this circular portion of member 9.

Thusconstructed, the yarn is-threaded through the passage l! of the eye in the conventional manneremployed with all pigtail' guides, namely by moving an uninterrupted length of yarn lat erallly' against the right-hand side of extremity IEf justbe'low the helix, and then continuing the lateral movement of the yarn to the left until it ispast' the curve of the helix at the junc tion of extremity t3 therewith, then lifting the yarn: up and over extremity: l3, whereupon the yarnis'relea-sed to descend at the right hand sideoff extremity f3, which completes the thread 7 ing of the yarnthrough passage IT,

It will be obvious that the novel guideeyehas manifold other uses in textile machines, particularly where yarns run at high speed in narrow and fixed courses, as in creels, and wherever else rapid wear and difficulty of threading up are a tubular member having one oi. its end-portions widened and flattened to recceive and retain one end of the blade, and a guide eye of pigtail shape madeoi. bore-silicate having one of, its extremities fixedimthe other end of the tubular, member, such extremity extending in substantially radial direction with respect to the axis of the eye.

2. A drop wire having in combination a blade, a tubular member having one of its end-portions widened and. flattened to receive and retain one end of the blade, and a guide eye of pigtail shape made of bore-silicate having one of its extremitiesfixed in the other end of the tubular member.

3. A drop Wire having in combination a blade, a portion at one end thereof having a cavity, a guide eye; of pig-tail shape: made entirely of syn: thetic jewel material, and cementing; medium fixing an extremity'ofthe pig-tail in the cavity.

4'. Adrop wire having in combination a blade a portion at; one end thereof having a cavity, 7

and a guide eye of pig-tail shape having one of its extremities fixed; in such cavity.

5. A- drop wire having in combination an apertured body-,, a tubular member operatively fixed thereon by frictional engagement over one end of such body, and, a guide eye of pig-tail; shape made of; bore-silicate having one of its extremities fixed in the end of the tubular member.

6. A drop wire having in combination an apertured body, a guide eye of" pigtail shape, made wholly" of synthetic non-metallic material, and a connector engaging an extremity of both the body and the guide, eye and uniting the latter to the body. I

7., A, drop wire having incombination an apertured body, a guide eye of, pigtail shape made wholly oijsynthetic. non-metallic materiah and a connector embracing an extremity ofboth the body and the guide eye and uniting the latter frictionally to. the body. I

8; A drop wire having in combination, an apertured body, a guide eye of pigtail shape made of? bore-silicate, and a connector engaging an extremity of both the body and the guide; eye

and uniting the latter to the body. 7

9. A drop. wire having in combination a guide eye of open helical. shape of which one extremity extends outward tangentially from the helix and the other extremity extends outward in substantially. radial relation to the helix, and an aperturedbody attached to the latter extremity and extending, in line therewith.

TI-LQMAS E. Watson:

REFERENCES CITED lihe. tollowing references are of. rec rd. in th file of; this, patent:

UNITED s'ra'rssr rsn'rs 

